Boston Computer Society - Sinclair Timex User Group Newsletter

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BOSTON COMPUTER SOcInBRTyY

§ Newsletter of the BoSTUG (Sinclair/Timax User Group) §

§ Vol 7 No 3 §

POF Ot OF PE Dt Ot NO OE OD TD a I DE DD OD Oe PD es OD

EDITOR'S HOTES

I apologize for the tardiness
of this issue of the BoSTUG
newsletter. Part is due to
delays in receiving contribu-
tions; part is due to ny
moving, which has scattered ny

life in three dtrections an
explains come sloppiness in
the layout.

Again we have a range oaf

offerings, but from only a few
contributors.

The gaod news is that we have
halted the decline in ST user
group membership - up one to
157. The bad news is that
less than five percent of the
mMambership participates in the
activities.

Over a hundred of us live
within Interstate 495. Ve
would like to know what we are
doing right and what we can do
to be righter. A call from
you to ma at 889-0830 would be
a big help. We don't want to
lase you so long as you retain
an interest in the Sinclair
computer of your choice.

Another bit of news in the way
of support for Sinclair Timex
users is the announcemant from
the gossip mill that a number
of dedicated ST users are
banding together to form a
National or even North
American S/T user group.

Editorially we applaud this
move, although it ig about
three years overdue.

Some advice: my expertence
with the ST User Group here
suggests that about 20% of a

membership will participate in
an activity, but only 5% will
become actively involved.

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsietter

AO Oe et Aa EE OD OE PD OD OD OD OD ED ED OD OD OY OD DD OY OOS BO OP PE OD OS a DD

Wa wish the Nattonal Sinclair
Timex User Group early success

and encourage all BoSTUG
members to join.
DIRECTORY
Co-director Peter Hale
889-0830
Co-director John Kemeny
263-3347
General Questions John Kemeny
263-3347
Machine Language John Kemeny
263-3347
Hardware Library Lee Ball

Lee, what's your PHONE?

Software Library Jim Rodlin
481-2155

Editor (pro tem) Peter Hale
889-0830

QL sub-Group Peter Hale
889-0830

Plexi-BBS 648-7651
Sysop: Bob Cutter 646-4425
TIMEWARP (BBS) 481-0555
Sysop: Jim Rodlin 481-2155

Member Services
Liason Will Stackman

547-0655

The Sinclair/Timax Newsletter
is the official publication of
the Boston Computer Society's
Sinclair/Timex User Group
(BOSTUG).

Membership is $35.00 per year
from the Society at 1 Center
Plaza, Boston, MA 02108.

The newsletter maintains an
exchange policy with Sinclair/s
Timex User groups willing to
reciprocate. Please forward
exchange issues to the editor,
Peter Hale, at P.O. Box 8763,
Boston, MA 02114.

Unless copywritten by the
author, articles are in the
public domain. Attribution is
requested.

~ai- May/June 1988

TABLE of COETENTS

Editor's Notes 1
Directory 1
Letter to Editor 2
2068 Windows, Part II 3
Psion Productivity Tip 5
Text87 - A Review 6
RamDisk for QL (program) 6
2068 Telecommunicatione

Notes 10
SuperBASIC for BEGINNERS
PRINT 11
Query on ABACUS 12
Going Online, T/S Style 12
Calendar Notes 13
Sing a Song of Silliness 14
Sinclair Fests Abound 15
QL Sold Out? 15

One Meg Expansion for QL 15

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Congratulations for one of the
finest (if not THE finest),
and most informative User's
Group Wewsletter, that I have
seen. I am a connoisseur of
newsletters; therefore I
should know whereof I speak.
I get four different User's
Groups newsletters from the
B.C.S., one froma dealer, two
froma Wational organization
one froma publisher tn Sew
Hampshire, and recently I
bought seven issues of QUANTA,
which I haven’t been able to
read yet.

The reason I applaud your
latest effort is because of
its clarity. As you know, I am
housebound and cannot attend
any of the B.C.S. meetings,
although I have been a member
for several years. 1 started
PC-ing with the 2ZX-80; then
the ZX-81, when the ZxX-80 des-
troyed itself.

with the
that,

I should have stuck
ZX-81 because after
things got complicated.

I graduated to a CP/M machine
which couldn’t do anything

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter

unless a couple of disks were
loaded into the maws of its
drives. The instruction man-
uals were numerous and not
written for the layman. It
could employ four different
Basic languages, which relied
on disk-loaded operating sys-

tems. I never became conver-
sant with any one of «hen
because a veritable hail of
programs on disks became
available through dealers who
bombarded me with their

catalogues and | obtained many
from the Public Domain.

Then Sinclair cozened me into
buying a QL. I succumbed
because of my experience with
the ZX machines, which I had
learned to regret abandoning.

I soon regretted my purchase,
however, chiefly because of
the weight, awkward bulk and
writing style of the User's
Manual. Terms were used that
I couldn't understand and
there was a dearth of examples

like your “e.g.s” in the
article on using SuperBaASIC
‘COPY’.

The only fault with your

article was that you did not
emphasize the need to read the
article with the computer ON.
It all seemed so clear when I
read it, but I didn’t teach my
hands to use the new knowledge
until much later.

I am reminded of
ancient dictum: "Although you
may think you know a_ thing,
you can never be certain until
you actually do it.”

Sophocles’

Mike Mitchell's (no relation)
experience with his QL is just
the opposite of mine. I’ve had
mine for two years - going on
three now - and have only
partially mastered Quill and
if it hadn't been for your
Tax-1-QL, I wouldn't even have
tried to use Abacus.

1 host

a QL subgroup meeting

esis May/June 1988

on a bi-monthly basis, and
have benefitted greatly by
getting to know you and Henry

April and the others.

However, I don't learn much at
the QL sub-group meetings here
because of my poor eyesight
and deafness, but I look
forward to them as a high
point in my dull existence.

1 keep comparing the QL to the
CP/M computer that I have and
the QL cames off "second
best”.

A disturbing slowness exists
in Quill which causes some
funny effects when following a
fast typist. Furthermore there
are several features in ny
CP/M Perfect Writer word
processor program that I wish
were in Quill. For inetance
there is no Global Replace
ability - which takes less
than two seconds in a 14,000
byte letter in Perfect Writer.

(You may want to learn about
TEXT87, an review of which is
elsewhere. Ed. 1}

Likewise, I can move a block

of text marked at its begining
and its end with two key
strokes and cursor movement. I
agree that the same can be
done in Quill, but you have
to wait until each letter is
blocked out in white at the
rate of about 1 per second.

I haven't tried
blocks around in ae single
file, but I have merged a por-
tion of one file into another,
by deleting what I didn't want
to move, naming the portion
differently and merging. In
the Perfect Writer program
this is done with two windows
and is very fast.

to move large

Keep up the GOOD work.

- John Mitchell
Westwood, MA

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter

2068 WIEDOWS PART II

Theory of Windowing

Windowing is a display tech-
nique for dividing a computer
screen into separate, indepen-
dantly controlled areas’ for
text, graphics or other forms
of information. This article
will explore techniques that
make windowing possible.

For windowing displays, a
number of problems must be
dealt with. First, screen con-
tents must be preserved when a

window is opened (Not all
windows do this). Screen
preservation is called ‘'‘'Non-

destructive windowing’.

One non-destructive technique,
discussed in the January,

1988, S/T newsletter involves
copying the entire screen into
menory before opening a
window. This method is
inefficient if more than one
window is involved or windows
are more sophisticated than
Simple ‘pop-up’ messages. For
real windowing, we must find

some other method.

Other problems a window driver
must handle are: text froma
window must be confined within
its window (no *spillage'),
text must be directed to its
proper window or the main
screan, overlap must be
handled without distorting the
screen or losing text, and it
all must be done QUICKLY.

The idea proposed involves
storing data in what 1 call a
‘window file’. It only works
with text, and it dependea on
the computer's abllity ta
identify a character printed
on its own ecreen (eg.
SCREEW$(Y,X) for the TS 2068).

The structure of a window file
1s basically a string of
display characters which
constitute the text in that
window, plus the text that the

- 3 - May/June 1988

window is over lapping or

*shadowting’:
Byte Defin- Notes
ition
1 ROW /-- Upper left hand
e COLUMN \-- corner of window
3 WIDTH /--- Actual text area
< is 2 lesa than W,D
4 DEPTH \----- to take border
chars into account.
5S RPP...... row print position
6 cCPP...column print position
wxD
rr rr rrr rn i
H 4
i Window H
H H
i Text H
H H
bre errr rn H
WaD
bt tt rrr H
i H
: i
i Shadow H
H i
H Text H
i i
i :

A window file ie created in-
ternally whenever a window is
opened and purged when the
window is closed. To print to
a window, text is placed
directly in the window file.
A separate display routine
handles the actual printing
later by copying everything it
finds in the window file onto
the screen.

A window file's header’ con-
tains six bytes signifying win-
dow position, dimansions, and
current print position within
the window. Print position is
updated by incrementing COL
for each character until the
right border is reached or a
CHR$(13) (ENTER) is encount-
ered. In that case, COL = left
margin and ROW = ROW + i.
Following the

header is’ the

BoSTUG Sinclair/Tinex Newsletter

information that the window
holds. It is stored as strings
of text in the order that they
appear in the window: Row 1
(Top line), Row 2, Row 3 etc.
(Hote: WO Return characters
are stored in the window file
-- only spaces and letters;
the last character in row 3 is
followed immediately by the
first character in row 4).
Immediately following the
Window text file is another
file, the Shadow text file.
The shadow text file keeps
track of the text that was
underneath the window when the
window was opened, in order to

create windows without cor-
rupting the main display.
When a new window is opened,
one of the first things it
does is copy that part of the
screen (including all text or
even another window) into the

new window's shadow file.
Thus, when the window is
closed, it knows what to put

back on the screen.

If you keep your window print
routine separate from your
screen update routine, you can
do some interesting tricke.
One idea is to effect ‘hidden
windows’ by reprinting the
shadow file, causing the win-
dow to disappear while main-
taining the window's content.
Hidden windows can be scroll-
ed, printed to, or cleared
without effecting the main
screen this way. To get the
window back it is only neces-
sary to call the screen updat-—

ing routine, and the window
will reappear instantly! This
is useful for viewing an
underlying screen display
without closing the window.
Just be sure to update the
shadow file before reopening

the window.

Scrolling a window is straight
forward. Copy each row in the
window file onto the one above
(or below) it and ineert a
blank line in the last row.

-4- May/June 19688

Afterwards, call the screen
update routine to refresh tha
display. Just scroll the
window one line at a time and
it’s a snap. Bi-dtrectional
scrolling 1s possible this
way. Scrolling a window daes
not affect the shadow file.

Occassionally the programmer
may wish to scroll the display
UNDERNEATH an open windaw.
This is where life gats com-
Plicated and the shadow file
gats put to real use. The
trick is to handle the four
areas around the window
(above, left, right, below)
separately, and to pay special
attention to the part that
scrolls behind the window.
For that, the top row of the
Shadow file is copied onto the
line above the window, the
Shadow file is scrolled inter-
nally and then the part of the
line just below the window is
copied into the bottom row of
the Shadow file. The sight of
a stationary window floating

above a scrolling background
is impressive and worth the
effort.

Finally, to close a window

just copy the shadow file back
onto the screen and purge the
window file.

Theoretically,
to the number
use at once

the only limit
of windows in
is set by the
amount of spare RAK. Since
window files store text only,
they are very memory efficient
(A 10 by 30 character window
uses only 606 bytes including
the shadow. An equal portion
of the display file requires
2400 bytes, not counting color
attributes! ). However, window
handling becomes very slow if
more than 2 ar 3 windows are
Open at once.

comes out. If it does, I will
include a listing with my next

article. I hope that this
discussion inspires a_ few of
you toa try ta write a
windowing routine along these

lines. I suppose that a window
file could be stored as an

array or long string variable
in BASIC (note: an array takes
SIX bytes for every elemant
stored!) but I think a window
driver would have to be

compiled or written in machine
code to be acceptable. What-
ever your preference, goad
luck and Keep On Timexing...
- Jim Rodlin
PSION PRODUCTIVITY TIPS

A limitation to Psion programs

is that file names may not
exceed 8 characters. Right?

Wrong! We know that Quill
adds the extension " doc” to
any file name saved from it.
This is useful in recognising

a file type by its extension.

However, you may give
three character
Cincluding
symbols in
Quill file

any
extension

numerals and
any order) to a
and provided you
enter it as well as the rest
of the file nan, the file
will load.

The advantage in having more
characters to describe the
file will be obvious to anyone
with extensive correspondence.

JJones_304 might save a letter
to John Jones on March 4th.

The followup on April 15 might
be JJ415_etc or JJ304_415 or
JJ415_&4&& but never JJ&&& 415.

Caution! You are on your own
indexing your correspondence,

I hava not yet tried ta Any index system must be con-

implement ny window files sistent. Don't use extensions

concept with actual code. This which can be confused with

may change by the time the other file types.

hext issue of the newsletter ~ Peter Hale
BoSTUG Stnclair/Timex Newsletter ~6§ -) May/June 1988

THIT87 — A REVIEW

Rarely does software arrive on

the QL scene with a potential
for dramatic changes in the
way the computer is used, but

TEXT87 is such a program.

I only recently received my
copy and am not yet familiar
with all its features. Other-
wise 1 would be using it to
write this newsletter.

Briefly it is a What-you-see-
is-what-you-get text editor.
It offers all the features
that would have made Quill
unsurpassed, and gives up
little without paying the
price of needing to reference

dozens of control codes.

It has on-screen prompts and a
heirarchical menu, much like
the Psion programe. It is
happy under Taskmaster but can
be multitasked with Control C.

First, you move around a large
document and move or erase
blocks of text very rapidly.

Second,
Design
you

instead of the Quill's
feature that comnsits
to certain parameters for
the whole document, THKT87
uses ‘rulers' that set
margins, tabs, justification
and line-feeds. Rulers can be
saved and recalled for later
use in different parts oaf
documents or other documents.

Third, you may have multiple
lines itn headers and footers.

Fourth, you may °’Go to’* any
part of the document directly
by specifying a line number,
and the range of cursor
controls is wider than for
Quill.

Fifth, (1 am always in favor
of a fifth) Quill documents
may be easily imported through
a special routine. Other text
files can also be imported in

a general routine. (Cont po)

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter =

RANDISEK for the QL
RAMdisking capabilities can
increase the versatility of a
computer by providing temp-
orary file storage.

RAMdisk reserves a portion of
memory for files. Thereafter
you access the file the same
way you access it on disk or
on microcartridge. There are
two differences: The device is
called ram as in ‘rani _ fred’.
The other difference is that
access to the file is very
much quicker than to files
stored on magnetic media.

A practical application is in
exporting and importing files
between PSION programs.

QDOS anticipated ram disking
and allows for up to eight ran
disks to be addressed.

Of the two types of ramdisking
the first is called dynamic
ramdisking and creates eight
zero sectored ramdisks. As
files are stored in a ranmdisk
its size expands up to the
available free memory in ram;
a ‘DIR raml_' might show -22/0
for a file of 22 sectors. The
advantage is that only as much
free memory is allocated for
ramdisking as is required.

The other type, published
here, is a static ramdiesk.
You determine how many sectors
you want when formating the
randisk. A certain amount of
guessing is necesary.

Key-in the following Super-
BASIC program. There is a lot
of hex data but it would be
50% greater in decimal cade.

When done, RUN the progran
with a formatted cartridge in
madvi_. Two things happen: You
create "ramdisk bin", a binary
file, and a SuperBASIC fila

called ram_boot that loads the
binary code and generates a
sample of ramdisking speed.

6-

May/June 1988

1000

1010 RESTORE

1020 OPEN WEW #4,mdvl ramdisk bin

1030 REPeat readloap

1040 IF BOF THEN EXIT readloop

1050 READ as

1060 pos=1 :1=LEN (as)

1070 REPeat spacestripper

1080 same=pos

1090 IF pos?l THEN NEXT readloop

1100 pos=post (a$ (pos)=" ")

1110 IF pos<>same THEN NWEXT spacestripper

1120 b$=a8$(pos TO pos+1)

1130 IF b&S(2)=" " THEN bS$2"0" &b$ (1)

1140 pos post2

1150 valua%=0

1160 FOR n=1,2

1170 cd=CODE (b$ (n> )

1180 value%=valuest (3-n)%4% (cd-48-7%(cd>64 AND cd<71)-39%(cd>96 AND cd<109)>
1190 END FOR n

1200 PRINT #4, CHRS$(values);

1210 EWD REPeat spacestripper

1220 END REPeat readloop

1230 CLOSE #4

1240 OPEN NWEW #4, mdv1 ram boot

1250 PRINT #4,"100 addr=RESPR(2048)"

1260 PRINT #4,°110 LBYTES mdvl_ramdisk_bin, addr”

1270 PRINT #4,"120 CALL addr”

1280 PRINT #4,"°130 REMark In the next line, change the value ‘100’ to suit”
1290 PRINT #4,°140 FORMAT raml_100"

1295 PRINT #4,"°150 REMark Setting up example filenames to demo DIRK RAM1_"
1297 PRINT #4,"°160 FOR n=1 TO 10"

1298 PRINT #4,°170 OPEN NEW #4,'RAM1 EXAMPLE FILENAME NUMBER: ' & n”

1299 PRINT #4,"180 END FOR n"

1300 CLOSE #4

1310 :

10000 DATA " 61 20 43 FA 00 OC 34 78 01 10 4E 92 70 00 4E 75 00 01 06 2E 07
10010 DATA " 41 4D SF 55 53 45 00 00 00 00 00 00 70 18 72 62 74 00 4B 41 47
10020 DATA " 00 1C 45 FA 00 F4 26 CA 45 FA 03 64 26 CA 45 FA 04 E4 26 CA DO
10030 DATA " 00 OC 45 FA 05 48 26 CA 26 FC 00 00 00 24 36 FC 00 03 26 FC 52
10040 DATA " 4D 30 41 E& 00 18 70 22 4E 41 48 75 70 03 2E 28 00 24 EF 4F EE
10050 DATA " 74 CO D4 87 60 00 01 DA 61 00 01 BE 66 26 38 19 5B 44 63 1E£ OC
10060 DATA " 00 29 62 168 20 3C DF DF DF FF CO 99 90 2A 00 14 BO AB 00 3E 66
10070 DATA " OC 19 00 5F 67 04 70 F4 4E 75 4B E8 00 68 2E 09 3A 28 OO 1H 42
10080 DATA " 00 1B 52 68 00 1E 70 47 74 40 43 ES 00 58 61 4A 67 08 OC 40 FF
10090 DATA " 67 14 60 OC 36 04 22 47 61 00 03 E2 66 DE 70 F& 31 45 OO 1H 4B
10100 DATA " 45 £8 00 58 70 12 42 62 51 C& FF FC 22 4A 2A 47 34 C4 14 DD 53
10110 DATA " 6E FA 31 45 00 1E 72 OF 74 26 1F 28 00 2C 61 O06 11 SF OO 2C 4E
10120 DATA " 70 FF 48 E? BF OC 4C D7? 00 05 76 01 61 OF 52 80 67 F4 53 80 58
10130 DATA " 4C DF 30 FC 4E 75 1C 28 00 1D 62 00 04 4A 4A 80 6D 00 OO BA OC
10140 DATA ” 00 40 65 00 01 12 OC 00 00 4B 62 22 DO 40 30 3B 00 86 46 FB 00
10150 DATA " 00 1C 00 1C 00 20 00 24 00 18 00 66 OO A4 00 86 FF 1A OO 62 FE
10160 DATA " 03 96 70 Fl 4E 75 70 00 4£ 75 70 00 60 14 70 0O 24 28 00 20 EF
10170 DATA " EE 8A 04 82 00 00 00 40 D2 82 69 1A 24 O1 6B 20 06 82 OV OO OVO
10180 DATA " 69 OF ED &2 69 OA D4 82 EE 4A B4 AB 00 24 OF OF 72 00 24 28 00
10190 DATA " 70 Fo 60 CE 74 40 72 00 21 42 00 20 4E 75 20 3C 52 41 4D 30 DO
10200 DATA " 00 14 22 CO 22 FC 5F 20 20 20 32 FC 20 20 22 14 70 00 4K 75 70
10210 DATA " 60 7E 7A 03 OC 42 00 40 6EF OF ZF 0Y 61 16 24 5F 04 92 00 00 VO
10220 DATA " 4E 75 70 FC 4E 75 7A 07 60 06 7A O07 74 OF 72 UO 74 00 34 26 OO
10230 DATA " 67 00 FF 66 3F 04 2F 26 00 24 2F 28 00 20 42 68 LU 1K 21 6C VO
BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newstetter aay abs May/June 1986

REMark Program reads in hex codes trom data lines & outputs them to a tile

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aSTUG Sinclair/Timex

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Mewsiletter

May/June 1988

Mitchell

2G how is this any better than printed in a single pass with
a decent editor? the column space between.

Next lines 2 and 62 are
One. Where Quill lets you printed and so on to the end
visualise bold, normal, of the page. Page two has
underlined and high or 1loW lines 121 and 181 on the first

script on screen, TEXT87 lets line. And so on to the end of

you visualise all type faces the file. .

including proportional, elite,

italics and double-wide Wot everything is peaches and

through extensive use of red crean. The 20 page documen-—

white and green as well as on- tation is sketchy on details

screen character spacing. and doesn’ t always cover
features that suddenly are

Two. Numerous fonts are avatl- offered in the prompts.

able in the deluxe edition of

TEXT87 and there is the TEXT87 is rich in defaults but

facility to design your own offers no overwrite protec-

fonts. These show on screen tion. Wo file handling is

and may be expanded up tO offered within the program.

quadruple height. You must revert to SuperBASIC

(with CTRL-C) to run a direc”

Three. Wormal printing uses tory or copy or delete files.
only the fonts available in This is a minor annoyance only
the printer, but TEXT&7 also because I am so used to the
has a screen dump to print out ease of using these features
in graphic mode to capture in Quill. In truth leaving
overhigh characters and fancy out such features lets you
type faces. access the full potential of
any front ends oar tTaolkits
Four. TEXT8?7? comes with a that you have installed.
number of printer_dat files
covering a range of printer THXT87 is not yet easy to use.
types. You select one to be It has many marvelous features
loaded on start-up after Ido not yet understand and
configuring a working copy of have not ment toned here,
TEXT87 for your own use. But including the choice of
if you change printers, you setting parameters in either
can change printer_dats from inches or the metric system!
within the program. It its tedtous tao set up your
working copy with the limited
Five. Up to six ‘frames’ ona instructions, and the prompts
page are possible. For are sometimes elegant, some-
comparison, Quill has three times maddenly obscure.
frames - header, footer and
text body. TEXT&87 can have Yet, ! have realised that with
four columns in the text bady. practice it will become ny
wordprocessor of choice and I
You enter the text as a single will not begrudge (in time)
column as wide as one column the six months delay it took
on the finished page. At to arrive after I had sent ny
print time, TEXT87 calculates £40.00 (no USS, no VISA) to
which lines are to be printed Software87, London. UK. £10
and they are printed in more for the multiple fonts
columns as in a newspaper. and the font modifier. (£1.00
= @ US$ 1.90).
Thus if the page is 60 lines
long, tao be divided into 2 - Peter Hale
columns, lines 1 and 61 are
BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter -~9- May/June 1988

2068 TELECOMNUNICATIONS HOTRS

The following is an overview
of telecommunications hardware
and software available for the
T/“S 2068 and how it all works.

For modems, the 2068 user has
several options. The Wastridge
2050 300 baud modem is still
available through several T/S
dealers, but anyone who hasn't
yet purchased a modem should
consider a standard 300/1200
baud modem now that software
is available to support 1200
baud. The best buy is the
Avatex 1200 ‘smart moden',
fron Megatronics for about
$685.00. They also have the
1200HC, a& Hayes compatible
version with the full Hayes
command set, for just over
$100.00. Call 1-800-232-6342
with a VISA card or write
Megatronics at PO BOX 3660,
Logan, UT 84321.

Connecting a 2068 to a 'stand-

ard' modem like the Avatex
requires an RS-232 interface
such as the Z-SIO card, a 3.5

x 5S" circuit board that plugs
into the rear expansion buss
of the 2068. A feed-through
connector lets you piggyback
other peripherals onto the
Z-SI10. The right edge of the
card has a standard 25 pin
RS-232 connector.

The Z-SIO comes in kit from Ed
Grey Enterprises for $29.95.

The number is 213-759-7406 or
213-516-6648, or write PO Box
2186, Inglewood, CA 90305.

The last piece of hardware you

need is the cable. Any IBM
compatible male-to-male cable
will do (for $12.00 extra, it

comes with the Avatex modem).

The software to drive this
hardware is a terminal program

called Specterm-64 Ver 4.1.
There are versions for tape,
JLO Safe Disk (V2.3 or
higher), AERCO FD-68 disk, and
Larken LKDOS system. Ali work

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter _

at 300/1200 baud with the
Z-S1O (There 1s also a version
for the WC 2050 300 baud
modem). The software features
a 64 column display, X-Moden &
ASCII! file transfer protocals,
31+ K buffer, and a 7K Basic
area that may be customised to
personal needs. All in all
it's a very fast and elegant
terminal progran.

Another terminal progran,
ZTerm-64, works in conjunction
with the OS-64 cartridge and
the WC 2050 moden. It uses
the 2068's high resolution
video mode so text its display-
ed with greater clarity than

with Specterm64 (which uses
four~pixel wide characters to
fit 64 columns onto a 32
column screen).

ZTerm-64 supports full-size
printers via a AERCO, Tasman,
or AtJ printer interface, and
it has X-Modem protocol. I am
not certain about 1200 baud

operation, but it is) incompat-
ible with the Z-SIO interface.
Zebra Systems was carrying
ZTerm64 for $29.95. Call
(718) 296-2385 or write to
78-06 Jamaica Ave, Woodhaven,
HY 11421 for information.

(Note- Larry Kenny of Larken
Electronica is working on a
version of ZTern to work
directly with the LEDOS
System. ZTerm64 is available
for most other disk systems.)

These two terminal programs
have made NMTERM and MXHTERM II
obsolete. Anyone still using
them should consider upgrading
to one of the 64 column
packages. Since Telenet has
begun phasing out most of
their 300 baud outdialing
modems in favor of 1200 baud,
I would recommend Specterm 64
over ZTerm if you use (or plan

to use) PC-Pursult. The
benefits are well worth it.
-Jim Rodlin

10 -

May/June 1986

SuperBASIC for BEGINWHRS
PRIET

Continuing from last month's
column, we move on to PRINT.

Most
idea
does.

of us have a pretty clear
of what the KEYWORD PRINT

E.g. PRINT “HELLO”
sends the word HELLO to the
upper left hand corner of the
right hand screen.

Correspondingly, a=10: PRINT a
will send the value ten to the
position just under HELLO.

The use of the word PRIET is
sometimes confusing because it
does not "print" to a printer.
The history of the evolution
of the term to apply to screen
displays is interesting but
not helpful here. At the end
of the tutorial we will demon-
strate printing to a printer.

Many other keywords are dis-

guised PRINT procedures so we
will discuss nine of then.

AT x,y moves the print posi-

tion to the co-ordinate x,y.

Unlike other Sinclair BASICs,

AT cannot be combined with

PRINT. as in PRINT AT x,y;

“HELLO”. It must be written:
AT x,y: PRINT “HELLO”

CLS "prints" a screen of blank
spaces and moves the cursor to
position 0o,0.

DIR prints
mediun, the

the name

humber of free
sectors, the total available
sectors and the names of all
the files on the mediun.

of the

INK var prints all subsequent
characters ina chosen color
where var = 0 to 7.

IMKEYS (var) prints the char-
acter pressed on the’ keyboard.

BOSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter -

INPUT aS prints the string (or
a prints the number) entered
at the keyboard and assigns it
to the variable a$s (a).

LIST prints the SuperBASIc
program currently in memory to
the left screen.

PAPER var “prints” the back-
ground of the screen a chosen
color if followed by CLS.

TO x; when following the word
PRINT, moves the cursor to the
xth column.

None of these PRINT commands
would work if QDOS did not
open channels to the screen.

On powerup QDOS opens three
channels, numbered zero (#0),
one (#1) and two (#2), on the
screen and defines them as
three windows, the wide,
narrow console at the botton,
and the white and red screens
side by side above.

All the PRINTing Keywords,
except one, are assigned a
default channel #1, called the
execution window, the right

hand one in monitor MODE 4.

The exception for defaults is
LIST which has channel #2 as
its default. Thus the progran
can be listed on the left and
its output viewed on the right
when run.

E.g. PRINT “HELLO” is the same
as PRIET#1, “HELLO”. PRIET#2,
“HELLO” behaves differently.

CLS clears only the HELLO in
the righthand window. CLS#2
Clears the lefthand HELLO.

#0 defaults to the
window on the bottom
connected to the

Channel
console
and is
keyboard.

When printing to other than a
default channel, it 1s nec-

essary to specify the channel
with the "#" followed by the
11 - May/June 1988

channel number, followed by a
comma. SuperBASIC ignores any
spaces you may insert for

visual clarity ina listing.
Some Practical Applications

You may view the directories
of both drives simultaneously
at follows:
E.g. DIR#2, mivi_ : DIR mdiv2_
will display the directory of
drive 1 in the left screen and
the directory of drive ce in
the right screen.

You may make paper printouts
of directories or listings by
opening a channel to the
printer:

B.g. OPHN#3, serl (the printer

port)

DIR#3, miv2_

LIST#3

CLOSE#3
will print the directory of
drive 2 to the printer and
then will print the current
SuperBASIC listing in memory.
Also, 1f you saved the
program, you may

COPY miv2_ fred to seri

to print a listing of a Super-
BASIC program called fred.

Some Exrercises

#1 PAPER 4: CLS: PRINT “HELLO”
#2 PAPER 2: PRINT “HELLO”

#3 PAPER 6: 1NK 2:PRINT “HELLO”
#4 FOR n=0 TO 6 STEP 2

PAPER n: INK nt2
PRINT n; TO n; “HELLO”
BED FOR n
Don't forget to actually

practice these few examples 60
that your hands learn what
your brain has just learned.

- Peter Hale

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Wewsletter -

messages,

QUERY OR ABACUS

When using ABACUS on the QL I
can ORBER' . the rows on a
spreadsheet ‘by selecting a
column on which to Order, but
1 cannot order the columns by
selecting a row.

How can I get around this
situation? Alternatively, is
there any way to rotate the
spreadsheet 90° so that the
rows become columns and the

columns rows?

- Sherm Waterman
S. Yarmouthport, MA
GOING ONLINE, T/S STYLE
Okay, so you have purchased a
modem and terminal program for
your computer, read the user
manuals, and are ready to go.
What next? Or perhaps you're
wondering what all the fuss is
about and you're not sure if
you want to go online. Let ma
describe what you're missing.

The most notable aspect of the
world of telecommunications is
the extraordinary number of
computer BBSes ‘out there’.
It is estimated that there are
over 1,000 BBSes in the United
States and Canada and most are
privately operated.

Typically a BBS is a small
computer equipped with a
modem, disk drives and usually

a printer. Although features
vary between BBSes, most store
bulletins, and some-
times programs, that any cor
puter user can access. Most
BBSes are also free.

In the
there is no
informative,
source of
computer
BBSes

Sinclair/Timex realm,

more dynamic,
and tnteresting

support for your
than on the various
and online services.
They are a continuous source
of free software, news, and
friendly advice from the other
T/S users who already use

12 -

May/June 1988

yas

modems with their computers.

I recently called the Worth-
Shore Sinclair BBS in Chicago
where I downloaded several
files including back caoptes of
their newsletter, Nite-Times,
and an updated list of
Timex/Sinclair BBSes. I read
messages left by other users
and left a couple of my own
including questions on rumors
about plans to form a national
T/S user group.

I expect someone will leave
replys to my messages over the
next few days. Meanwhile, I!
will be calling other BBSes toa
see what's going on tin the
rest of the T/S world.

You can reach a lot of people

who share your special
interests through bulletin
boards. 1 am involved in an

effort to organize a special
interest group on Artificial
Intelligence for Sinclair
users. By leaving messages on
BBSes to bring attention to
the subject, I located others
who were interested in joining
the new group. By taking a
similar approach, you can find
information about nearly any
interest. BBSes put you in
contact with people from all
Over the country.

“Wait a minute! I can’t afford
long distance calls to Chicago
or Los Angeles every night!
What am I supposed to do?"

There is a low cost option,
called PC-Pursuit. that lets
node m users make UNLIMITED
long-distance calls to major
cities during off-peak hours,
for a flat $25.00 per month.
The one-time registration fee
of $25.00 1s waived for BCS
members. (Weekdays, between 7
amand 6 pm, PC-Pursuit is
$10.50 to $14.00 per hour. )

I regularly use PC-Pursuit to
call favorite Bulletin Boards
in cities around the country.

BoSTUG Sinclair/Timex Zewsletter

I keep in touch with people
and ideas that interest me for
less than the price of dinner
(for one) once a month.

For information on PC-Pursutit,
call 1-800-835-3638 (689-5700
in Virginia) or write Telenet
Communications Corp, 12490
Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston,
VA 22096. The PC-Pursuit bul-
letin board is 1-800-835-3001
(689-2987 in Virginia).

Bulletin boards are one aspect
of telecommunicatitons although
for many (myself included),
they were the reason to have a
modem in the FIRST place.

A full description of conmer-
cial online services such as
Compuserve is beyond the scope
of this column, but perhaps
another reader will submit an
article about CIS or The
Source and Sinclair computers
(hint! hint! hint!). T1121
next issue, Keep On Timexing!

-Jim Rodlin
Sysop, BCS TIMEWARP BBS

CALEEDAR BOTES

The next General meeting of
the Sinclair Timex User Group
will be at 7:00 pm on
Wednesday, June 15, at the
UMass Harborside Campus, room
1-061 Wheatly Butiding.

There will be no July meeting.

The next QL subgroup meeting
will be on Saturday, July 2,
at the home of John Mitchell
in Westwood. John's number is
326-5420, ta call for
directions.

FLASH! SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR Will
be the featured speaker at the
June 22 General meeting of the
Boston Computer Society.

See the new 288 laptop in
person at the New Hngland Life
Hall starting at 7:30 pm.

- 13 - May/June 1988

SING A SONG OF SILLINESS

{From the D-FW DATA Expansion,
the journal of the Dallas Fort
Worth T/S User Group, citing
*The Prairie Home Companion’
as the source]

To the tune of
General' from
Penzance’

‘A Modern Major
‘The Pirates of

I've built a better model than
the one at Data General

For data bases animal and
vegetable and mineral.

My OS handles CPUs of multi-
plex duality.

My PL-1 compiler shows impres-
sive functionality.

My storage system's better
than magnetic co-polarity.

You needn't even bother check-
ing out a bit for parity.
There isn’t any reason to
install non-static floor
matting.

My disk drive has capacity for
variable formatting.

1 feel compelled to mention

what I know to be a gloating
point;

There's lots of space in
mamory for variables floating
potnt.

In short, for input vegetable,
animal and mineral
I built a better model than
the one at Data General.

The IBM new home computer's
nothing more than germinal.

At Prima they still have
problems with an interactive
terminal.

While Tandy's done a lousy job
with operations boolean,

At Wang the byte capacity's
too small to fit a Coolie in.

BOSTUG Sinclair/Timex Newsletter

Intel's major finances are
something of the troubled
sort.

The Timex/Sinclair crashes
when you implement a bubble
sort.

All DEC investors soon will
find they haven't spent their
money well.

And need | even mention Wix-
dorf, Univac and Honeywell?

By striving to eliminate all
source code that’s repetitive
I’ve brought my benchmark
standings to results that are
competitive.

In short, for input vegetable,
animal and mineral

1 built a better model than
the one at Data General.

In fact I’ve a Winchester of
minimum dianmater,

When I can call a subroutine
of infinite paraneter,

When I can point to registers
and keep their current map
around,

And when I can prevent the
need for mystifying
wrap-around.

When 1 can update recard
blocks with minimum of
suffering,

And when I can afford to use
100k for buffertng,

When I've performed a matrix
sort and tested the addition
rate,

You'1]1 marvel at the speed of
my asyncronous transmission
rate.

Though all my better programs
that self-reference
recursively,

Have only been obtained
through expert spying done
subversively.

Still for input vegetable,
animal and mineral
I built a better mode) than
the one at Data General.

- 14 - May/June 19858